Many facets of business involve providing goods to others. Retailers may provide these to their customers as end users of the goods. Wholesalers may provide goods to others in the supply chain. Regardless, each provider needs to assure they have adequate supplies on hand to avoid loosing a sale to the customer who often “needs it now.” Of course, inventory usually costs money, usually requires space, and may even require manpower in some manner. For these reasons, there is a competing goal of minimizing the amount of inventory on hand at any given time. With a focus on the immediacy offered by immediate communication and overnight delivery it has often appeared that the focus of proper business management and inventory control has been on utilizing an immediate delivery option rather than giving a greater degree of attention to intelligent management of the inventory amounts themselves. As its name reflects, the concept of “Just in Time” delivery may even be seen as a reflection of a focus more on the speed of delivery rather than an intelligent handling of the inventory allocations themselves. It may even be that a problem has been a diversion of attention away from an independent management of the inventory to an acceptance of guidance from a supplier or salesman who often assists in suggesting and guiding the management of the inventory itself through application of their impressions and experience in the particular industry to which they supply their particular goods. Unfortunately, this experience may or may not be applicable. In fact, in some industries, variations in consumer behaviors can exist on a microeconomic level. For example, using the liquor industry as but one example, the suppliers' experiences and impressions gleaned from sales to retailers having a residential consumer base in one part of a town can vary dramatically—and have little applicability—to a retailer in the same industry having a college or university consumer base. Surprisingly, this can exist even though the two retailers are but a mile or two apart. Thus, the guidance offered by the salesperson for the supplier may be completely inapplicable. This can even exist without the salesperson being aware of it, for often the two types of retailers are perceived as having similar characteristics. Thus, what may be needed may be an ability for individual retailers and wholesalers to have their own information base and their own knowledge of their own consumer base from which to make informed decisions. Importantly this may need to be presented in a simplistic and useful manner for actual users—often managers of individual departments of the small retailer.
There are a variety of systems available to make these systems, of course. Other than those focusing on the Just in Time aspects, systems seem to focus on the mathematical or other precise nature of the information available rather than its simplicity of use. For this example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,341,271 entitled “Inventory Management System” discloses an approach which focuses on a system that senses and calculates appropriate inventory levels. As can be understood, this approach is not one that lends itself to the simplicity needed for use by a small retailer or the like. U.S. Pat. No. 5,237,496 entitled “Inventory Control Method and System” discloses an approach that focuses on a system applied to a department store of the like that provides warnings on diversions from what is appropriate as determined from computations. It acknowledges the challenges of over dependence on the relationship and a reliance on the maker or wholesaler of the goods involved. Again, it is believed that this approach has complexity that does not lend itself to the simplicity needed for use by a small retailer or the like and its complexity may even deter use of the system by a small retailer. U.S. Pat. No. 5,765,143 entitled “Method and System for Inventory Management” discloses an approach applied to an automobile parts industry that focuses on a system that applies actuarial data and perhaps statistical algorithms to achieve accurate inventory management. Again, this approach is also not one that lends itself to the simplicity needed for use by a small retailer or the like. Other patents using a level of complexity perhaps not seen as appropriate include U.S. Pat. No. 5,596,493, U.S. Pat. No. 5,608,621, U.S. Pat. No. 5,963,919, U.S. Pat. No. 6,341,269, U.S. Pat. No. 6,470,324, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,609,101. Again, each appear overly complex and do not facilitate an integration with an existing or pre-existing POS system to the degree contemplated by embodiments of the present invention. This can be especially desirable when conducting efforts to determine an appropriate amount to order given consumer and supplier environments that can change on a spur of the moment or with little notice. Existing systems simply fail to provide a proper balance that allows a small retailer to enhance its vendor partnerships, to help actually achieve capital preservation, and of course, to provide superior customer service by trying to not be out of a customer's favorites at any point in time.